Chord Hugo 2

On January 8th, 2026, I suffered an acoustic trauma due to a spontaneous volume spike from my Hugo 2. I’ve had two such incidents:

While I was away, the device maxed out the volume on its own. When I put the headphones back on, the volume was at maximum (white globe), and I haven't checked the indicator.

Check the official Chord Hugo 2 thread on Head-Fi (recent pages). You will find my report there, along with similar stories from other owners who experienced the same issue with both Hugo 2 and Hugo TT2.

Their official stance is that this is caused by "rogue IR signals" from household devices, denying any internal hardware or software faults.

Second post I read about sudden volume spikes, the first one was about the mojo 2. Yeap, that solidifies it, never buying a Chord product. This shit is inexcusable.

Nothing like when an $2500 DAC/amp goes haywire and destroyàs you hearing. Or the D.A.V.E measured so bad that the reviewers thought his measurement equipment was broken. Chord should definitely take responsibility for some of this, you should look into filing a lawsuit.